


Who Knows How Long I've Loved You

by takumiismypatronus



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Bisexuality, Divorce, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Misunderstandings, Moneypenny is a Good Friend, Tea Strainers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:14:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5139425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takumiismypatronus/pseuds/takumiismypatronus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond is a little bit obsessed.</p><p>Q is a little bit married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bond

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, not Brit-picked. No doubt has an unholy marriage of American and British spellings. Visiting London and living for a year in British Columbia didn't really help.

Bond doesn’t know what to think about Q. Their introduction at the National Gallery is a frisson of something new for Bond, something he hasn’t anticipated. Attraction certainly, but also curiosity and respect. It seems as good a reason as any to stay not-dead.

The working partnership they form while dealing with Silva has potential, but the fledgling camaraderie fades in the months following M's death in Scotland. While there is still some cordial chatting over comms during missions, it doesn't have the spark it did at the beginning. And the conversation doesn't carry over to his forays to Q Branch. Then, whether Bond is getting equipped for a mission or returning what is left of that equipment afterward, Q is all business, both professional and brief. Even his chastisement for damaging the weaponry and tech is detached, almost preoccupied, like the destructive force of a Double-0 agent is inevitable and not worth comment.

It makes their face-to-face interactions awkward, at least for Bond, who is used to getting a positive response to his effortless charm. It leaves him wrong-footed, a feeling that is decidedly unwelcome. Bond’s attempts to pry information from Moneypenny come to nothing. She can’t—or won’t—give him any insight into the enigmatic Quartermaster. Pestering her becomes his favorite London-based hobby.

“Tea,” she says on this day, as he lounges against her desk, admiring her long brown legs even as he prods her to tell him something useful about Q. What he thinks might be useful, he can’t say. “He likes it. Keeps multiple types in the cupboard in the Q Branch kitchen. All loose leaf.”

Bond doesn’t roll his eyes, but the look he gives her amounts to the same thing. “He’s British,” Bond says.

“Yes, exactly. And now you know two things about him.”

“He’s British and he likes tea.” Bond speaks deliberately, as if he’s not sure she understands how clichéd this is.

Moneypenny hums her assent as she glances over the details of a mission for one of the junior agents. She puts the file in a stack with some others.

“I don’t know why you’re so interested,” she says. But that can’t be true. Everyone knows Bond has a predilection for beautiful and dangerous things, whether cars or guns or people. And Q is clearly both beautiful and dangerous.

Bond stands and pats his jacket pocket. “You’re no help at all. I’m headed out for a smoke.”

Moneypenny tuts with disapproval. She scoops up the stack of files and heads toward Tanner’s office. “The upper terrace is nice this time of day. Take care, James.”

“Eve.”

Bond stares out the window overlooking the Thames. This conundrum is taking too much of his attention. Who is Q? What makes him tick? How can Bond best wind him up? Or, conversely, take him apart? In the past, his fascination has been sated by taking the person in question to bed—or wherever—for a good fuck. But he doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere with Q. Certainly nowhere in that direction.

The autumn rain has been falling steadily all morning, but it looks like there is enough of a break in the weather to keep him from getting overly wet. He takes the stairs two at a time, pushes open the door, and stops dead.

Q himself is pacing the terrace, agitated and apparently on his third cigarette, judging from the pair of butts smashed into the ashtray he carries in his left hand. He’s tucked his glasses out of the rain, but his hair is wet enough to drip. He looks up sharply, startled by the sudden intrusion.

“I was just leaving,” he states, stubbing out his last cigarette, stepping around a potted evergreen and making for the door Bond still holds. “Have at it.”

On instinct, Bond reaches out and snags Q’s elbow. Q turns to him and Bond sees that his eyes are rimmed red. “Can I help you, 007?”

“I…” Bond starts, but Q gives a curt nod and disappears down the stairs.

 

***

 

He buys the first one at Murchie’s, a few blocks from Victoria’s Inner Harbour. It’s shaped like an umbrella and makes a single cuppa. He doesn’t drink tea. He doesn’t need a tea infuser. But it reminds him of rainy days in London. Specifically, a rainy day when an umbrella might have kept someone from spending the next few days sniffling in his office.

 

***

 

It is nearly 27 degrees in Qatar. Bond waits for three hours behind an air conditioning unit in Doha for his liaison to download the database to a flash drive, give his boss the slip, send 007 the signal, and meet at the Tennis and Squash Complex. Bond thinks he could have solved this issue two and a half hours ago with a bit of force and some justifiable collateral damage, but his instructions are to wait, keeping his dubious ally in sight at all times. So now he sweats on a rooftop, while Nasser lounges beside a swimming pool several floors below, nowhere near the computer in question.

“Favorite movie?” Bond asks quietly.

“ _Amélie_ ,” Q answers.

“You’re a closeted romantic, Q?”

“Not closeted in any way, 007.” He hears the smirk in Q’s voice. “I own my romanticism.”

Q rarely shares much about himself when they kill time together, so this silly game feels like progress. “Favorite novel?”

“No, it’s my turn now,” Q chides. “What’s your favorite?”

“Not necessarily my favorite, but I enjoyed _The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_. I mostly read non-fiction. Favorite band?”

There’s a short pause and then Bond hears the opening of “Yesterday” in his earpiece.

When it concludes, Bond can’t help but say, “I like The Beatles, too, but they broke up before even _I_ was born. Surely you prefer newer music. What’s a band someone your age might like? Oasis?”

Q ignores the dig about his age; he’s only ten years younger than Bond. “Oasis disbanded five years ago, 007. And you, of all people, are conspicuously aware that the classics never go out of style. Besides, The Beatles have a song for every mood and this one is sort of my theme song these days. Do you have a theme song—a song that sums up your life at the moment?”

“I guess I’ve had a few over the years. Do The Beatles have one for me, too?”

Q hmmms in his ear, a thinking sound, and then plays “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”

They both chuckle and Bond tries to imagine what the other man looks like when he’s pleased. When he’s…satisfied. “Favorite actress? –Wait, my mark is finally on the move.”

“Later then,” Q says softly before he snaps back to Quartermaster mode.

Later doesn’t come. Not on this mission, which turns both bloody and painful in the blink of an eye thanks to a sniper on an adjacent roof.

Bond has never been so glad to leave a country when M orders it; everything Bond wants right now is a stonable offense under Qatari law.

 

***

 

“He’s going through a very difficult breakup,” Moneypenny confirms when Bond next sees her. She seems more inclined to respond to his direct questions, rather than the lazy fishing he’d done before. Q’s self-identified theme song had perhaps divulged more than he meant it to.

“A long-term relationship?”

“More than ten years, I heard.”

“Do I need to kill the bastard?”

“Q?!”

“No, the good-for-nothing boyfriend.”

Moneypenny tilts her head, giving Bond an appraising look.

“Not boyfriend…wife,” she says. “She’s asked for a divorce.”

Bond knows his surprise must show on his face, as Moneypenny points out, “It’s not like you to make assumptions.”

Bond just grunts and turns to leave the executive offices. “Have you seen his trousers? No straight man wears trousers like those.”

Behind him, he hears her laugh and tap her computer back to life.

 

***

 

“Change of plans. I’m going to need a car, fully equipped, waiting in San Francisco,” Bond tells Q as he strides past yet another Starbuck’s in the Seattle airport. Everyone he sees seems to be clutching a red cup.

“Understood, 007. When you get to San Francisco, check in at the…” Bond hears Q’s fingers fly across his keyboard, “Budget Rent-a-Car counter.”

Bond huffs, but it does suit his cover. No big-money international exports this time, instead he’s posing as the founder of an idea-rich, cash-poor start-up looking for investors. His commitment to the role includes the adoption of Rockports and an American accent. If his life were a movie, he thinks, this mission wouldn’t make the cut.

In San Francisco, the spotty kid behind the counter hands Bond the key to a silver, four-door Ford Focus which Bond knows has a complete arsenal hidden in the boot. He puts it to use.

 

It’s not until he’s driving up Highway 1 from Big Sur to Santa Cruz that Bond discovers that the first preset on the car’s radio plays nothing but The White Album. He hums along while considering his post-mission plans for the evening.

Bond has slept with men for information and leverage and, yes, even recreation. And he thinks if ever there was a city for this indulgence, San Francisco is it. But his suitcase, in keeping with his cover, is full of plaid button downs and pleated khakis—not how he would choose to present himself for seduction. Fortunately there’s an app for that. After checking into the hotel, it takes him a mere twenty minutes to download Grindr, make a passable profile for “Ian Michaels,” and find a hook up.

Zach describes himself as a clean 23-year-old Silicon Valley geek who likes to top older men. Bond certainly doesn’t think of himself as “older,” but twenty years is twenty years. (“Call me _daddy_ , and we’re done.”)

He answers the door to his room wearing nothing but black boxer briefs—no need to pretend this is anything but what it is. Bond is happy the kid is wearing legitimate eyeglasses and a cardigan. Bond is happy to divest him of both—and then everything else.

The next morning, he passes over the Asian clay teapots at a shop near Golden Gate Park in favor of a tea strainer that looks like a yellow submarine. There’s not a leaf of tea in his flat, but when he gets home he places the box in a lower drawer in his kitchen, next to the Murchie's bag, and closes it firmly.

 

***

 

After the winter holidays, Bond chances upon Q in the locker room. He’s wiping the last fleck of shaving cream off his chin when Bond walks in from an early morning swim, a wet towel tied around his waist. It’s easy to deduce that Q has been sleeping on the sofa in his office: why else shave at MI6 at 6 a.m.?

“Surely 009 didn’t cock up her mission so bad that you had to work through the night?” Bond isn’t sure whether his teasing is aimed at Q or the other agent, since he already knows that 009 was extracted without incident yesterday evening.

Q meets his eyes in the mirror and opens his mouth, but there is no witticism, no comeback at all. “I’m not welcome at home.” His voice hitches in the middle of the comment.

They stare at each other a moment longer before Bond, suddenly aware he is woefully under-prepared to deal with real emotion, glances away.

 

That night he is baffled when his personal mobile rings with a number he can’t identify. There are few that have this number, fewer still that would call late on a Tuesday night. He guesses it’s not his tailor.

“Yes?” he answers with caution.

“007, I feel obliged to apologize for this morning’s loss of control.”

Even in so few words, Bond recognizes the sound of someone who has been drinking and is now overcompensating with formal speech patterns and extra clear enunciation, like the drunk driver who signals too early and doesn’t go anywhere near the speed limit.

“I’m having a scotch, neat. What are you drinking, Q?”

“The same actually. It’s the bottle I got from M at Christmas.”

“And where are you enjoying your holiday liquor?” Bond asks, completely ignoring the unnecessary apology. What happened in the locker room was barely a crack in Q’s typical composure. In fact, Bond feels uneasily like he is the one who should be apologizing, for having not been a better friend.

“Home,” Q says. “Or I guess it’s rather my wife’s place now. But she’s out of the country for work and I was told to pack. I need to find my own flat it seems.”

Bond makes a sympathetic noise. He’s never shared a flat with anyone, but the untangling process sounds messy and painful.

“What’s she like?” Bond asks. “If you don’t mind.”

“Gorgeous, brilliant.” He hears Q take another sip of the scotch and set down his glass. “Untouchable.”

Sounds familiar, thinks Bond, but he says, “It’s been coming for a while I take it.”

“More than a year? Unstable since my promotion to Quartermaster and then…” He makes the sound of an aeroplane crashing and burning, then snorts bitterly. “I shouldn’t jest like that—she’s actually a pilot for British Airways. Always away from home. The conflict of two demanding jobs, you see. One of them too classified for her taste.”

“She flies planes?”

“The irony is not lost on me, Bond.”

“We’re technically off duty. Call me James?”

“Yes, okay. James. My name is Adrian, but you probably already knew that.”

“I may have looked it up,” Bond admits.

He hears the scratch and flare of a lighter and then Q’s drag on a cigarette. “She won’t let me smoke in the house.”

“Ah, petty rebellion. I know something about that.”

“‘A healthy relationship takes compromise,’” Q says and Bond can tell that it’s a quote from the absent wife. “You’ve never had one? A healthy relationship?” No doubt Q has read Bond’s file as well.

“Not really,” he says, pointedly trying not to think about Vesper—what could have been, what he thought briefly it was—and failing.

“Me neither, I guess. ‘Compromise’ always meant me trying to make her happy, and rarely the other way around,” Q confesses. “We’ve been together almost my entire adult life. I keep making mental lists of all the things I can do now that I have only to please myself.” He anticipates the next question. “Strawberries, for one. Sophie is extremely allergic, so we never have them in the house, though I do love them.”

Bond takes another sip of his own drink to give himself time to process the image of Q closing his rosy lips around a juicy berry. “At least now I know the answer to ‘favorite fruit.’”

“Indeed.”

From his flat, Bond can see London is wearing her evening gown, all velvet blue and twinkly lights. And somewhere out there is his Quartermaster, Adrian Woods, alone and seemingly lonely.

“You know, I have an extra bedroom here,” Bond says before he thinks it through. There is nothing but silence for most of a minute and Bond doesn’t know whether Q is offended or whether he might actually be considering it.

“Thank you, Mr. Bond, but I do not need a flatshare,” Q says eventually, stiffly, before the connection goes dead.

 

***

 

The moment the mission is complete, Bond disappears. Q hasn’t been on comms with him in close to a month. Granted, the mission hasn’t really warranted personal handling by the Quartermaster—it was nothing more than surveillance—but Bond can’t help but think it’s punishment for his misstep.

He’s only a hundred kilometers from Berlin and there is no real reason to expedite his return to Britain. Instead, he plans to give himself one hour to find some company—and forty-seven to enjoy her.

The woman he brings back to his _Gästehaus_ says her name is Hedy, which sounds promising. And if she is less curvy than his usual type, with small breasts and slim hips, he doesn’t think too much about it. And when she’s on her knees sucking him off, if all he wants to see is the top of her head, his fingers tangled in her short dark hair, so what? And if he tenderly watches her sleep, curled away from him, her vertebrae a miniature mountain range down her bare back, well, that doesn’t demand any reflection either.

He buys a tea strainer shaped like a strawberry at a boutique in the capital on the day he leaves for London. Back at his flat, he puts it with the others before pouring himself three fingers of scotch and turning on the stereo.

 

***

 

Moneypenny looks especially fetching today, Bond thinks, as he leaves M’s office with instructions to head down to Q Branch. Her wine-colored dress hovers just on the proper side of work-appropriate.

“Hot date tonight?”

She smiles coyly. “It was lunch. With a friend.”

“A friend with benefits, perhaps?”

“Not all of us sleep with our friends, James.”

“More’s the pity.”

Q Branch is buzzing with activity. Bond knows that several of the other Double-0s are out of the country on missions, and in fact sees details of 004’s efforts in Nigeria on the massive screen in front of Q’s workstation.

He and Q haven’t spoken for six weeks. Six weeks, two days. Not that Bond is keeping track.

The Quartermaster’s back is to Bond, so he takes the opportunity to observe. Q is talking 004 through a complex maze of wires that might be connected to an explosive—or to a land-based telephone system. It’s hard to tell from this angle. He is dressed not in his usual quiet geekery, but in a proper suit—slim, dark trousers and a tailored jacket. Appealing.

"I heard he actually left the building for lunch," one of the techs whispers, indicating Q with a jut of her chin. Bond realizes he's been staring more than is polite and too long to claim disinterest.

 _Lunch…with a friend._ It isn’t much of a leap to couple Moneypenny and Q—both young, attractive, single. And while the mental picture of the two of them together is highly compelling, the fact that Q might already be interested in dating stirs up a possessiveness that Bond doesn’t usually feel. Uncomfortable.

So Bond stops asking about Q when he kills time in Moneypenny’s office between missions. She, on the other hand, often talks about the Quartermaster. With particular warmth.

“You’re smitten,” Bond pronounces one day when he’s had quite enough.

Eve peers at him through narrowed eyes. “And you’re jealous,” she accuses.

 

***

 

Bond is surprised when Q personally requests his presence in Q Branch. When he arrives, both intrigued and a bit hopeful, Q waves him toward his office, fringe flopping across his forehead.

“I’ve been working on something new for you,” Q says when the door closes. “And I’ll be on comms with you for this one.”

The incident that led to two-and-some months of no contact seems to be forgiven, if not forgotten. Glad to be back in Q’s good graces, Bond can’t keep from smiling. Q somewhat returns it, a small quirk of one corner of his mouth. As he goes about the briefing, Bond notes that his movements are confident, his eyes bright, his skin clear. And that might be an actual spring in his step. Bond has never seen the other man so relaxed. Content. In contrast, he can feel the elevated thump-thump of his own heartbeat beneath his Tom Ford shirt. “You’re in a good mood today.”

“It's been a long cold lonely winter,” Q says and Bond doesn’t know whether to take it literally or figuratively.

“Here comes the sun,” he responds, like a counter password.

Q rewards him with a real smile, one that reaches his green eyes and makes his nose wrinkle. Adorable. Bond vows to make it happen again.

The “something new” is a passive infrared sensor hidden in a tie bar. (“Will I never get an exploding pen?”) Bond thinks about rising body heat and leaves before he oversteps Q’s obvious boundaries.

 

***

 

They debate the merits of aeroplanes versus trains versus ships. Bond is ostensibly on vacation in Corfu, the next Larsson novel face down beside the cocktail he hasn't touched. He’ll make his move against the Korean arms dealer—who really _is_ on vacation—tonight, once it’s dark and Q has remotely disabled both the lights and the security cameras. This is the field test for the new infrared sensor.

“If a ship has mechanical difficulties,” Q is arguing, “there’s still a good chance of survival. Planes don’t continue to fly.”

“Ah, but it’s hard to sail a boat to Amman, if, for instance, I were to escort you to SOFEX.” Bond winces, hoping that was not too much. He is trying his damnedest to dial back anything that could be construed as flippant, insincere flirting. He’s finds himself willing—wanting—to play the long game. He waits, mobile to his ear, while the silence stretches long and tight. Again.

“Well,” Q finally says, “for the right purpose, or the right company, I might be persuaded.”

Bond lets out his held breath. Q is the only aviophobe who would consider the Special Operations Forces Exposition to be an occasion worthy of air travel.

 

In Athens, Bond finds a tea infuser shaped like the Titanic that slowly sinks to the bottom of the cup. The shop is only twenty minutes out of his way, although exhaustion and OxyContin make it take twice as long.

He flies first-class from Greece, and allows his body and mind to rest until the plane touches down at Heathrow.

“Welcome to London, where the local time is 8:04 p.m. On behalf of Captain Rob Anders, First Officer Sophia Spencer-Woods, and the entire flight crew, we’d like to thank you for choosing to fly British Airways.”

Bond is instantly alert, his pain forgotten. He hangs back slightly, giving other passengers the chance to disembark first. When he goes to leave, he gives the female co-pilot an appreciative glance, making his interest apparent.

In the terminal, Bond takes a front table at the bar where she can’t miss seeing him. He has mixed emotions when she nods at the captain to go on without her and steps up to the table. This is an opportunity to get close to the one person in the world who probably knows Q—Adrian—best. But he’s also a bit sorry that she seems so willing to be chatted up by a random stranger. Q deserves better.

As he had said, Q’s wife is stunning. Pale skin and flaxen hair, pouty pink lips and a waist nearly small enough to circle with his hands, but with a severity born of having to prove herself competent—not just beautiful—in a male-dominated field.

“Excellent flight. Can I buy you a drink?”

They talk for forty minutes and Bond learns that she studied art history before aviation, and has season tickets to both of London’s primary opera companies. She prefers fruity cocktails to martinis. When he suggests a strawberry daiquiri, she smoothly changes the order to peach. She’d like to get a dog for companionship, but is away from home too often. She fails to mention either a husband or a pending divorce, but neither does she suggest that they leave the airport for somewhere more private.

Bond feigns a phone call to excuse himself. She jots her number on a serviette that he tucks into the pocket of his overcoat while mouthing apologies. As he walks away, he's shocked to find that he’s honestly not interested, and chalks it up to her being a colleague’s wife. Not that that’s deterred him before.

Still, when he leans his forearm against the shower tile and slowly fists his cock under the nearly scalding water, he tries to visualize her spread beneath him, blonde hair fanned across the pillow, gasping her pleasure. Instead he sees the scene from a distance: Q arched over him, pressing his pale chest against Bond’s muscular back. In his head, this imaginary Q bites his shoulder and breathes his name. _James._ He comes with a groan and then calmly washes all evidence away.

 

***

 

Istanbul in April. Beautiful, volatile. Bond’s known plenty of women like that; he wonders if it’s not time for a change.

He concedes he might have a problem when he buys the fifth. Instead of hitting the lounge and locating a companion, or even falling into bed alone for some much-needed rest, he maps a teashop and discovers a shiny stainless TARDIS. He doesn’t have a favorite Doctor, but knows that Q’s is Ten and that he’s not that fond of the classic series.

 

***

 

There is nothing to do in Phuket that Bond hasn’t already done. Besides, it’s the hot season and no one talks about anything except the upcoming rain. Desiring the monsoon seems like courting trouble. And Bond has enough experience in that field.

Coffee, newspaper, breakfast, hurry up and wait. The exciting life of a secret agent. It’s 1 a.m. in London and Bond has called Q—no, Adrian—at home, his brand new flat in Kensington, not far from Bond’s own.

“It was not supposed to be anything more than a job,” the other man is saying. “It could have been BP or Lloyds—everyone needs computer skills like mine. But instead I hired on at MI-fucking-Six. I had no lofty ambitions: survive my deployment and get a job, marry the girl, take an annual holiday to somewhere accessible by train.” There’s the sound of sliding glass doors opening, closing. Then Q’s voice carried on a spring breeze, “I find myself with nothing remaining but a responsibility I never meant to have.”

“I’m well acquainted with the state of having nothing left,” says Bond seriously, but then changes the subject, still unwilling—unable?—to expose himself. “I wouldn’t have guessed military. Must be that non-regulation haircut.” The electronic file he had long ago found on Q had been sparse, without details of his personal life or his employment prior to MI6. So many things about Q have taken Bond by surprise. Including his own growing feelings…

“The hair is just more petty rebellion,” Q says, the same words Bond had used during their first phone conversation. Bond is astonished he remembers. “She hates it,” Q continues, and there’s no need to explain whom.

“I wasn’t really cut out to be a squaddie, but I proved I could fix anything given to me—guns, vehicles, hardware and software, security breaches, personnel issues. So I was recruited to what I thought would be a nice, safe job in Blighty. Boothroyd promised all the resources I could want, and I wouldn’t be the one getting shot.”

“Yes, you leave that up to me.”

“I do my absolute best,” Q says, his voice gone gentle, “to see to it that you come back in one piece.”

“I know you do.”

 

When it is past midnight in Thailand and Q is wrapping up his day at MI6, they talk again.

“Artificial intelligence doesn’t have to come in a humanoid package. That’s so Asimovian,” explains Q. “You can’t possibly think that bipedal locomotion is the most efficient. You know, 85 percent of the organisms on our planet have six legs.”

Bond shudders audibly for effect—though insects, like snakes and sharks, assault rifles and assassins, don’t scare him. Very few things do. Love, perhaps—commitment paired with vulnerability. But then again, maybe that no longer seems as frightening as it once did.

“And,” Q continues, clearly enthusiastic about the subject, “it’s more likely that most true AI won’t have any form at all.”

“Like JARVIS.”

“Yes!” He laughs, the sound like bells. “I love when you make pop-culture references, James. Maybe you’re not such a dinosaur after all.”

Bond grins at the left-handed compliment. He pounds his hotel pillow into a better shape for leaning against and turns off the muted television. Talking to Adrian in the dark is…soothing? Fun? Good. Yes, that.

 

***

 

Bond comes across the robot with bendable arms in a shop window while on his way to Henrietta Street for a fitting. He wasn’t even looking this time, but there it is. Small and inexpensive. On its own, it could mean nothing—a bauble picked up spontaneously, inspired by a friendly chat. But when it’s the sixth little something…Never mind, no one needs to know.

 

***

 

Bond tries to keep his voice light, even as he lies on his bathroom floor, lights off, curled around his cramping abdomen. “So you once said you could fix anything. Did you mean people?”

“Are you broken, James?”

In so many ways, Bond thinks, but goes with the most pressing issue. “Food poisoning.”

There’s a contemplative silence, then, “Charming. I suppose Medical is out of the question?”

“Just need fluids, time.” Comfort, he thinks, but then dismisses it. “Also, a kukri caught me on the shoulder blade and I can’t properly reach to clean the laceration, not in this condition.”

“Give me sixty,” Q says and they both know it will be sooner.

Bond has dragged himself back to his bed by the time Q bypasses the flat’s security system and lets himself in. “I’ve brought you fluids,” he calls as he hunts for the master bedroom. “Are you able to keep things down, or do you want it intravenously?”

“Drip,” Bond croaks, his throat burned by stomach acid. His guts are still churning, although better than before.

It shouldn’t surprise Bond that Q is as competent with a needle as he is with everything else. Q affixes the bag of saline to the headboard with the same medical tape he used to secure the hypodermic to the back of Bond’s hand, then shifts him to change the dressing on the knife wound. “This has been neglected and will probably scar,” Q says sadly.

“Will you mind?” Bond asks, a bit delirious. But he’s already falling into dreams of dark-haired angels and misses Q’s whispered response.

“No, James. I won’t mind at all.”

 

When he wakes, bright sunlight is streaming through the crack in the drapes and the IV solution bag is limp. He feels remarkably good. Thirsty, but definitely on the mend. He finds Q still in the flat, seated at the table with his back to the hall.

“I may be ready to give up clams for good,” Bond jokes, amusing himself, but his good humour dies when Q turns, revealing what’s on the table.

“I was looking for tea,” Q says. And for the first time in Bond’s physical presence, he’s more Adrian, less Quartermaster. He looks stunned, eyes wide behind his specs. Bond is reminded of his relative youth.

There are six novelty tea infusers arranged in a row on the glass surface of the table—and Bond knows there’s a seventh in his yet-to-be-unpacked suitcase in the foyer. He holds little hope that Q will think it’s just a bizarre collection and not make the connections.

But of course he does. “Asimov, The Beatles, Doctor Who, ill-fated modes of transportation…”

“Yes, well, it does seem a bit obsessive, now that I see them all together.”

Q stands abruptly, nearly knocking over the chair. “You’ll obviously live—I should go.”

Bond reaches out a hand, but he can still taste the sick in his mouth and knows that he desperately needs a shower, and he can’t see how to explain that he’s not a stalker. Or maybe he is, but it’s not mere fixation, it’s more akin to affection…or even…? But he can’t go there, so…

He watches Q walk away.

Bond knows he should get rid of these stupid, troublesome things, but instead he stows them neatly before helping himself to one of the electrolyte drinks Q thoughtfully left on the counter.


	2. Q

“This has to be the strangest courtship I’ve ever seen,” Moneypenny says, delicately wiping her mouth on the linen napkin. They meet for lunch at Frankie’s every Thursday they can both get away.

“I don’t want to be courted,” Q states firmly. He pauses, considers. “Not even by James Bond.”

She looks skeptical, like she thinks that Q doesn’t really have a choice. “In your time at MI6, have you known anyone to turn him down?”

“There was that woman in Lisbon…” says Q.

Eve raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Yes, but if I remember correctly, her wife was all too willing.”

Q takes his glasses off with his left hand and rubs the tense crease between his eyes with his right thumb. “Well, I don’t think _I_ can do it.”

Her other eyebrow joins the first, high on her forehead. “Are you honestly going to tell me he’s not your type?”

“Are you honestly going to tell me he’s boyfriend material?”

“Ah,” Eve says, as if Q’s predicament is now self-evident. “Then tell him. As far as I can determine, you haven’t said you’re not inclined in that direction.”

“That direction being men—or casual sex?”

“Either would work.”

“He’s never been that overt. It seems presumptuous to turn down something that hasn’t been offered. And you should have seen the look on his face. He did not mean for me to find those things. Maybe hoarding trinkets is as far as his infatuation goes. It’s not like it was a hair doll.”

Moneypenny tosses a black bankcard onto the tray without looking at the bill. Q will pay next week.

“So maybe you need to be the direct one. You found the evidence of his obsession—fine, call it _interest_ — so now you can tell him no thank you. He’s a grown man—it’s time he was introduced to rejection.”

“Yes, that sounds like the right thing to do.”

“But Adrian, if you genuinely mean to discourage him, then you need to check _your_ behavior as well. Routing him to a bakery in Turkey the moment his favorite pastry comes out of the oven sends a certain message.”

“But he was maintaining that the best baklava comes from Greece. Preposterous!”

“Yes, and you may think you were only showing off, like the WTF007 auto plates—stop smirking, that caused massive paperwork!—but it could also be construed as flirtatious. Co-workers, or even mates—if that’s how you think of yourself and James—don’t make that much effort.”

Moneypenny slips on her jacket, shaking her head. “I think you actually like that he’s so keen.” She holds up a hand to stop his protest. “And that’s perfectly normal, considering you haven’t been single since Blair was PM.”

She leads Q past the other cloth-covered tables and into the thin sunlight of early summer. “You should give it some thought. Maybe a romp with Bond is just what you need.”

 

***

 

If Q decides to reject Bond—or shag him—he doesn’t have the chance to act on it for more than three months. 007 spends the whole summer on a mission in Brazil, totally dark, coming back to London tanned and remarkably unscathed.

“I’m not convinced it was all work,” Moneypenny says to Q, looking over the menu at Frankie’s, even though she usually orders the grilled chicken and rocket salad.

“The trail of destruction would imply otherwise. Share a dessert today?”

She nods, but won’t give up her line of thinking. “He was off comms for eleven weeks.”

“And the job got done. If the last few weeks were a much needed holiday, more power to him.”

Eve presses her lips together as if to keep from smiling, then gives it up for lost. She grins. “You’re defending him. Did you miss him? What do you think he bought for you? Do they make Christ the Redeemer tea strainers?”

Q frowns at the teasing. “Don’t be childish. It doesn’t suit you. And you know how I feel about the whole situation.”

“I know what you’ve _said_ about the situation, but I also know you activated his subdermal tracker and checked his location every day.”

“That’s my job!—I’m the Quartermaster,” Q exclaims, though the color is high on his cheeks. “But regardless of my own feelings—which have not changed, I’ll have you know—I have not seen nor heard from Bond since he returned.”

Eve looks at him, eyes soft. “You’re not fooling me. If your feelings haven’t changed, it’s because you’ve liked him all along. So call him, Adrian.”

“His number isn’t even in my contacts,” he sniffs.

Eve pulls her mobile from her clutch and enters the code to unlock it. She pushes the phone across the table. Q can see that the contact is listed simply as “James” and the number is Bond’s personal mobile. He’s taken off guard by tightness in his throat. Of course Eve would have that number; she and Bond are friends, and twice, according to her, had been something else.

“No. I can’t,” he says, voice earnest. Moneypenny’s playful smile fades.

 

***

 

Sleep does not come to Q that night. Normally, he doesn’t have trouble falling asleep, though he’ll admit that he often drinks a little bourbon as a nightcap. And he’s been sleeping alone since long before the actual separation, so it’s not that. But tonight he keeps reaching for his mobile to check the hour.

Finally, he sits up, switches on the bedside lamp, and puts on his glasses. He turns the phone over in his hand a few times. It’s pointless to lie to himself—as pointless as trying to hide his feelings from Moneypenny, who knows him as well these days as anyone does. But he’s spent so long building a wall against Bond that he doesn’t know where to find a gate.

Q has always moved slowly with personal relationships. Sophie had been the one to propose marriage, once she deemed him worthy. And the thing with David Park had smoldered for eighteen months before blazing white hot in the three weeks before the other soldier was discharged. (“Just fuck me already, Woods.”) So maybe it’s too late anyway; maybe Bond baked away his preoccupation with Q on a beach near Rio, caipirinha in hand, a girl from Ipanema waiting in his bed.

He’s not sure why he’s hesitating. Before the discovery of the tea strainers, before Brazil, he and Bond often spoke on the phone. But that was only while 007 was on a mission, and Bond had always been the one to call. It’s easy to have a conversation when you’re thousands of miles apart. Knowing Bond is in the same borough makes this seem like more. Intimate.

Because friends don’t call each other at—he checks the time again—2:47, particularly if it’s a simple matter of sleeplessness. He thinks about phoning Eve or even Sophie. No, he’d never do that at this time of night unless it was an emergency.

He’d told Moneypenny the truth—Bond’s number isn’t programmed into his phone. But he knows it just the same. He hits the buttons before he can talk himself out of it. _Go to voicemail. Go to voicemail._

On the third ring: “Q? Is everything all right?”

Bond sounds wide awake, like he’s been waiting up for Q’s call. But then the Double-0s have all been trained to be battle-ready at a moment’s notice.

“Dinner,” he blurts, floundering, caught off guard. He really had hoped Bond wouldn’t pick up. _Real suave, Adrian._

Bond seems entertained by this. “If this is concern for my well-being, Quartermaster, then rest assured, I ate a square meal last evening.”

Q sighs as if he’s put out by Bond’s lack of perception; it gives him a moment to organize his thoughts. “On Saturday. If you’re available.—And want to.”

“No, ‘how are you, James?’ No, ‘I spent the entire summer thinking about you, James?’”

“No, just dinner. On Saturday.”

“M expects me to be in London for several more weeks, as you well know, so I am indeed free for dinner.” His voice deepens to a growl. “And I definitely want.”

Q feels himself relax, all the anxiety from this thing—this itch under his skin, this clutch in his chest, this spinning of his mind—finally dissipating. Action, reaction.

“Good, it’s settled.” He pauses a beat. “So, how are you, James?”

Bond barks with laughter. “Lonely. Come over.”

“Just dinner, remember.”

“And ‘dinner’ is not code for anything else? I’m disappointed.”

Q hides his smile behind his hand, as if he doesn’t want to admit that this conversation makes him slightly giddy. “Goodnight, James.”

“Goodnight, blackbird.”

The understanding comes only as he’s finally falling asleep—before the dreams of gunpowder and circuitry. In that liminal state when his thoughts are between sluggish and sharp, it comes to him: blackbird singing in the dead of night.

 

***

 

Dinner goes well. Really well. He had braced for the worst: Bond’s conversation dripping with previously reined innuendo and cheesy lines, or himself feeling totally outclassed. Instead, Bond is the ideal dinner companion. He’s conversant without being a know-it-all, attentive without being leering, polite without being pandering. And he smells bloody fantastic.

It’s not until dessert is on the horizon that Q starts to feel the anxiety return.

Bond notices. “Adrian?”

He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. “Are we going to do this again?”

“That would be up to you, but I certainly would like to.”

“Well, I have stipulations. That is, if we’re going to do this again.”

Bond sets down his wine glass, all attention on Q.

“First, I have never had, and will never have, a one-night stand. I do relationships. _Exclusive_ relationships. Though, admittedly, some are longer than others. If you’re not interested in that, then this has been a lovely dinner and I will see you at the office.” He pauses, looks expectant.

“I do want that.” The response is immediate, like Bond doesn’t need to deliberate. Like this is exactly what he had in mind from the moment they met. Like it is in character.

Q is a bit taken aback by this easy acquiescence. He had expected his first demand to be the end of the discussion. He knows—everyone knows—that Bond definitely does _not_ do relationships. That he had slept with Eve on two different occasions was an anomaly—and evidence of Moneypenny’s own powers of seduction.

“Perhaps when you called, I should have said ‘I spent the entire summer thinking about you, Adrian.’…Exclusively.” Bond lets that sink in. “So, there is another thing? Before I can see you again?”

Q attempts to carry on with his agenda. “I do my best to keep my work life and my home life, such as it is, separate. So as your Quartermaster, I will always be focused on providing the best weaponry and intel. I won’t play favourites and I insist you continue to do what is necessary to complete your missions. But when I walk out of Vauxhall Cross at the end of the day, as much as possible, I’m a civilian. I have a few friends, a few hobbies, a sister in Kent…”

“Maidstone?”

“Folkestone. But that’s not my point.” Bond has started to smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Delighted. Q hesitates, a smile playing at his own mouth. “Am I overthinking this?”

“Indubitably.”

He stares across the table at Bond, green eyes locked on blue. “Then I guess there’s only one last thing to sort: Dessert here or coffee back at mine?”

“And to be crystal clear,” Bond says, not breaking eye contact, “‘coffee at yours’ isn’t code for sex either?”

Q wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Actually, it is.”

 

***

 

Both the cab and the lift seem to take forever and Q swears he can feel the heat between them ramping higher with every passing minute. Scorching. He has to stuff his hands in his pockets to keep them to himself until they are alone.

But once the door to his flat closes, there’s no frantic unbuttoning, no desperate unbuckling. Instead, Bond steps forward and kisses Q gently, cradling his face in both hands like he’s a treasure. And when Q tugs impatiently on his jacket, Bond refuses to be rushed. “I want to savor our first kiss,” he says into the corner of Q’s mouth. “I thought you were supposed to be the romantic.”

Q huffs in frustration. “We can do it as slow as you need the second time.”

Bond laughs, good-natured. “You think I’m going to manage twice in one night?”

“You will if I have anything to do with it!—But right now I just want to fuck you.” Bond tenses and Q pulls back to fully look at him. “Is that not alright?”

“God, yes, it’s alright. Unexpected. Perfect.”

In the bedroom, Bond rests his forehead against his arms and takes everything Q has to give: bossy instructions and filthy praise, tongue and fingers and cock. And when Q wraps his arm around, makes a slick fist, and strokes Bond to completion, the tight clench has him seeing his own stars. They recover lying side-by-side, breath labored, eyes half closed, awash in endorphins. Then Q laughs aloud, unguarded. “That was spectacular!”

The second time is indeed slower, the adagio slide of skin on skin, languid and warm. Urgency abated, they take time to explore their new topography. They balance on the cliff edge of ecstasy for long minutes, and it’s not until Q bites Bond’s bottom lip, hard, that they finally tip, the pleasure painful in its intensity.

An hour later, Bond is naked on the bed, soft and sated and clean, when Q comes back from the shower. “Just like riding a bike?” Bond asks.

“Like riding something.” Q drops his towel and climbs gracefully onto the mattress, lowering himself until they are lying chest to chest. Bond runs his hands down the swell of Q’s bare arse as they share lazy kisses. Q can tell the moment Bond feels his thickening erection pressing on his thigh.

Bond smiles against his lips. “Insatiable! You might be too much for me.”

(That’s the opposite of what she had always said, Q thinks. For her, he was never enough.)

“Should I be worried that you’ll work out the kinks and leave me for a younger…person?”

“Oh, I worked those out months ago.” Q flaps his hand a bit to indicate the past. “Not kinky.”

Bond runs his tongue across his bruised lip appreciatively. “Is that so? Because I think you have an aptitude we might develop.” He hooks a leg around Q’s calf and rolls them over. “So this is not your rebound?”

Q acts affronted. “You think I’ve been virtuously pining from afar? No, James, I’m afraid you’re not the first.”

Bond takes this as verification of what he has long suspected. “And Eve claimed that not everyone sleeps with their friends. What a liar.” There’s nothing but amusement in his voice.

“Less talking,” Q says, lifting his head to nip kisses down Bond’s neck.

“If you say so.”

“Or I’ll make you put that mouth to work.”

“Please do.”

 

***

 

It goes forward like this: dinners, followed by the best sex Q has ever had. Soon it becomes dinner-sex-breakfast, which suits him just fine. Then there are date nights, and quiet evenings in front of the telly, a Saturday trip to Oxford, a stroll in Hyde Park to admire fall leaves. Grocery shopping.

Q stocks Bond’s kitchen with his favorite varieties of tea. He uses several of the campy tea strainers, but his favorite is the manatee, which was inspired by a revealing long-distance discussion about Navy life that devolved into something else entirely. (“You think sex with a mermaid would be challenging? Think about centaurs.”)

They manage it keep it mostly under the radar at MI6. Moneypenny knows, of course, and Tanner, who is pretty damn astute. No one tells Mallory.

Their working relationship remains completely professional. Q doesn’t always personally oversee 007’s missions; Bond still takes beautiful women to bed when necessary.

But the Q Branch staff begin to suspect something has changed. The Quartermaster used to go home only to eat, kip, and shower. (“What friends? What hobbies?” Bond had asked, straight-faced.) But now he leaves at a reasonable time for weeks in a row. And since this is an organization where even the computer geeks think of themselves as covert operatives, it’s not long before they solve the puzzle: Q stays late when 007 is in the field, but spends less time in the office when the agent is in London.

 

***

 

Mallory, Tanner, and Moneypenny are in Q’s office monitoring 007’s mission. He has been in Eastern Europe for six days and now needs to distract the Israeli ambassador’s daughter long enough for Q to access her networked laptop and retrieve—and then wipe—incriminating files from her mother’s server.

“Let’s get this wrapped up,” Tanner orders. “I have plans with the kids for Bonfire Night.”

The most obvious distraction is also the simplest to execute. The woman has been all but rutting against Bond since he met her that afternoon. Usually at this point, unless there is a reason he needs to be in contact, Q turns off the feed and leaves his agent to do his job.

But Bond has extracted himself from the woman’s grasp on pretense of using the gents, and is lurking in the service hallway. “I don’t want to do this,” he admits. The mic picks up the reluctance in his voice. “There has to be another way. How much time do you need? Another half an hour?”

The other three people in the room turn to look at Q, who tries to appear completely unperturbed. “Agent 007, this is an ordinary mission assignment. Is there a problem we don’t know about?”

“Camera,” Bond requests, already moving down the hall and out another door to where he knows there is CCTV.

Q hits a few keys and suddenly Bond is on the screen, overlarge and slightly grainy. Still, it’s real time and Q feels the same relief he always does when he sees—with his own eyes—that Bond is safe. Alive. “We have you.”

Bond stares into the camera. “Adrian? Please?” he says and it almost sounds like he’s pleading. (Although Q has heard him beg and this is not the same at all.)

Q does not want to have this particular discussion at this particular time with these particular people within earshot. He pitches his voice low, so no one else can hear him. “James, we’ve talked about this. Why now?—And please consider that I am not alone in the room.”

There are a few seconds of silence and then Bond begins to hum. It takes Q a few bars to place the tune. “In My Life.”

“What is that? What’s going on?” M interrupts.

“That would be The Beatles, sir,” Moneypenny—the traitor—explains to her boss. She looks as if she can’t decide whether this is hilariously funny or sweetly romantic.

Bond skips the second verse and hums the final few lines, pointedly looking into the lens. He can’t see what is happening back at Q Branch, but he winks at the camera when he hears Q’s sharp intake of breath as the meaning hits. _In my life, I love you more._

Q purses his lips and, completely ignoring M’s confusion, makes a quick decision.

“Very well. I can trigger the fire alarm without activating the sprinklers. It will inconvenience a few hundred people, but there won’t be any property damage.”

“Thank you.” Bond turns to head back to the dining room and out of the camera’s view. “So Q,” he says, returning to their usual easy banter, “if you’re able to create an appropriate diversion remotely, why do I always have to get my kit off?”

“Perhaps because that’s always been your favorite part of the mission, 007.”

Bond’s laugh is bright. “Not anymore.”

“Can somebody please tell me what just happened?” asks M, as Q overrides the building’s security protocols and they hear the fire alarms. “Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say that Agent 007 just declared his love for the Quartermaster.”

 

***

 

Later in the month Bond is treating Q to the symphony: black ties and dinner jackets. (“I’ve seen plenty of opera, but I’m not really a fan,” Q had once said, missing how Bond’s jaw tightened.) A small present, wrapped in silver paper, sits on the credenza near the door. “That’s nothing,” Bond says. “It’ll keep.”

They haven’t spoken about Bond’s musical admission. They haven’t said the words, although Q feels it simmering under the surface of their every interaction, even while his common sense tells him it’s too soon.

“Sometimes my life surprises me,” he says as Bond tweaks his tie to sit straight. “I was a troubled kid from the Heygate Estate. And now I’m headed to the Philharmonic with the best looking man in Britain.”

“Vladimir Jurowski?”

“Ha ha.”

“Nothing about you would make me think you’d grown up on a council estate.” There’s no judgment or derision in his voice. It’s a nice change from Q’s previous relationship.

“Five years in the British Army helped set me straight. And Sophie coached my speech and manners for another eighteen months before I was allowed to meet her parents. It was quite a makeover. All I know about the arts and etiquette are thanks to her. I may have gained the technical skills to be Quartermaster on my own, but Sophie made me executive material.”

“Did she?” Bond does not sound convinced. “Like your very own Professor Henry Higgins.”

Q slips his hands under Bond’s waistcoat. “I do seem have a knack for attracting posh lovers.”

“A draughty stone manor on the moors of Scotland is the opposite of posh, Adrian.”

“Ah, but public schools, ski holidays in Switzerland, a vast knowledge of wines and forks…as well as a closet of bespoke suits and a frankly impressive collection of cuff links…shall I go on, Commander Bond?”

“No, no, your point is taken. And Sophie?” His voice is carefully neutral as he asks.

“She grew up in Chelsey and her surname was Spencer. Enough said.”

“Spencer, as in…”

“Yes, cousins some degree of removed. Close enough that her grandmother was invited to Charles and Diana’s wedding, far enough that Soph herself has never met any of them.”

Bond does not look the least bit impressed, and Q ducks his head to hide his gratitude.

 

The concert is sublime and Q’s emotions are running high. Love and longing, passion, despair. When they get to the interval, he decides he needs a smoke.

“I’m going to buy cigarettes,” he tells Bond, giving his knee a squeeze.

“Take my coat,” the other man offers. “Mine are in the pocket.”

Q slips out the side door. The November air is bracing and he feels his head start to clear. It smells like rain, and, since he’s wrapped in his overcoat, James. It’s the smell of London. The smell of home.

He finds the cigarettes stuffed in the pocket of Bond’s coat, together with his left leather glove. Patting the other pocket doesn’t yield a lighter or matches, so he yanks out the right glove to better reach the depths of the pocket. Crumpled paper flutters to the pavement.

Not wanting to litter, Q bends to scoop it up and sees that it is a serviette with something scribbled on it. Sharp, spiky numbers written with a black biro—so familiar, so out of place, so unwanted.

The recognition is sudden and visceral. Q’s reality glitches, all the colors and textures distorting. He stumbles in agony. Vertigo. Suffocation. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe! _He can’t breathe!_

“Sir? Sir, are you ill?” A voice in the distance, but no, a man, the doorman, is beside him and asking if he is all right. He definitely is not.

He leans against the rough wall and forces himself to focus. Inhale. Exhale. James. Sophie. Inhale. Exhale. Too much. Never enough.

As the other patrons head inside for the second half of the concert, Q gathers his wits. He hands Bond’s overcoat to the doorman with a ten pound note. “Please return this to Mr. Bond. Row L, seat twenty-one.”

Tears already starting to prickle, he hails a cab and gives his address. As the cab hurries through the dark, Q begins to tremble. Shock. He slumps against the window, resting his cheek on the cold glass, and allows the tears to fall.

 

***

 

He receives ten texts and six voicemail messages before he finally turns off his phone. He ignores the pounding on his door (“Just tell me you’re safe or I’ll break this down!”) and works from home for five days, until James—no, Bond—is next out of the country.

At MI6 he locks himself in his office, only allowing Moneypenny inside. He embargos all information about 007, delegating Bond’s mission to a senior handler.

“So that’s it?” Eve asks when she takes him a sandwich and forces him to eat a few bites. He’s pale, already losing weight. “You’re not going to talk to him about whatever is going on in your head? You’re just going to pretend he doesn’t exist?”

“I’m going to try.”

Q rides the train to Folkestone and spends Christmas Day with his sister. He wanders the Leas alone, eats very little, talks even less. “I’m worried,” she says. He shrugs. There’s nothing he can do; nothing he wants to do, without James.

 

***

 

He and Bond haven’t spoken for six weeks. Six weeks, four days. Not that Q is keeping track.

When he arrives at the pub, Sophie is already waiting in the booth farthest from the door. She’s cut her hair short since he last saw her. She used to keep it long and loose at home, in an austere chignon for work. Now she has a Carey Mulligan/Daisy Buchanan thing going on. He thinks it makes her look sweet-tempered. _Deceptive._

“I bought yours,” she says as he slides in on the opposite side. Not so much as a _hello_. There’s a cocktail with a cherry and a pint of lager on the table. “You can just pay me back.”

“Ta.” He’s not sure what else to say. He doesn’t feel like drinking. At least not here. Not with her.

She smiles a wan little smile, her rosebud mouth drawing his eye. “It seemed fitting to have one last drink, now that we’ve received the decree absolute. Closure and all.”

It’s nearly a year to the day since he moved out of their shared flat. (A year since he drunk dialed Bond, his treasonous mind supplies.) The final legal paperwork for the divorce had been delivered to Q’s home the week before. He hadn’t bothered to open the envelope.

She makes awkward small talk and he gives one-word answers. _How is your sister? Did you hear that mutual friends are having a baby? Did you see Noah Stewart in_ Butterfly _? How’s your job?—not that you can tell me about it._

There’s a lull. Sophie nervously bites the inside of her cheek and Q knows she has something specific on her mind. He’s had eleven years’ experience reading her mannerisms; it’s not something he could forget in twelve months.

He makes an effort to be receptive. “What is it?”

“Bram and Maggie saw you in the West End awhile back. With a man. So you’re seeing someone?” She sounds resentful, as if their split hadn’t been all her idea.

Any charitable feelings he had for her vanish. He stares at the wall over her head and tries to keep his mouth shut. He doesn’t want to give her any ammunition. Then he glances back to her and it spills: “Not anymore, thanks to you both. Can’t you allow me to have anything of my own? You’ve erased my past; now you steal my future?”

Sophie’s brow wrinkles in consternation at his change of tone. “What the hell do I have to do with it?”

“I found your mobile number in his pocket. In your own handwriting. Did you sleep with him?”

“Fuck you, Adrian. I don’t even know who you’re talking about!”

Q stabs at his phone to bring up a photo of himself and Bond together. (“You kids and your selfies...”) He shoves it at her. “Have there already been so many that you don’t remember him?” He tastes bile. Why did he even come here tonight? Why does he still let her order him around?

She ruffles the hair on the back of her head and Q knows she’s trying to think. When her hair was long, she would twist it in her fingers while balancing her bank account or studying for exams. He once found it endearing.

“Oh! He was on one of my flights and bought me a drink afterward! Ages ago. March? April? Jim, he said his name was. No, James.”

Her voice gains confidence as she remembers more details. “Afterward I felt like I had totally monopolized the conversation. I didn’t learn anything about him other than his name, but I talked about art and opera. And dogs. God, he seemed so interested. But not _interested interested_ , if you know what I mean. He didn’t give me his number and he never called me.”

“Interrogation disguised as conversation is what he does.” Q sounds both bitter and admiring.

Her grey eyes widen with comprehension. They look dull and washed out in comparison to Bond’s heart-stopping, brilliant blues.

“Oh!” she says again. “He works with you. He’s a…” She trails off as if she shouldn’t say the word out loud.

“Yes, one of the best.”

“Adrian, believe me, nothing happened. I don’t think he was really talking to _me—Sophie_. Maybe he just wanted to meet Mrs. Woods.”

 

***

 

“I fucked up, Henny Penny.”

“So, you finally figured that out?” And with more compassion, “I’ll be right there.”

When Moneypenny arrives with sympathy pizza, Q is wild-eyed and disheveled, like he’s been running his hands through his hair for the past hour. Which he has.

While she calmly eats, he paces and tells her all the details he’s kept to himself for the past month and a half: the symphony, the cigarettes, the serviette, the phone number. Then, Sophie’s story about meeting James in the spring and the one-sided conversation she’d had with him.

“So, this happened months before you and Bond were together?” Moneypenny clarifies. She kindly doesn’t remind Q that he himself was having a friendly sexual relationship with her around that same time.

“What he did before me is his business; what he does in the field is his job. But I just can’t bear the thought of him with her. _Ever._ ” He spits the last word. “I presumed his guilt. And I was wrong. And I now want to fix it.”

“Then you need to do something about it as soon as possible. Because if you don’t, he’s going to get himself killed.”

 

***

 

It’s after midnight and Bond doesn’t answer his door. But just as he did all those months ago, Q lets himself in—the security is laughable.

It’s easy to read Bond’s distress in the empty flat. The bed in the master bedroom hasn’t been slept in recently, but a pillow and blanket are a messy heap on the end of the sofa where Bond left them. Clothes, usually fastidiously cared for, are piled in a chair. There’s little food in the kitchen, but Q counts three empty scotch bottles—and another only partially full—one for each week Bond has been in London since the night of the symphony. All of the tea strainers—and Q’s tea—have been relegated to the bottom drawer again. Out of sight.

Bond’s go-bag, where he keeps everything from clean pants to cash, isn’t in its usual, easy-to-grab place. So he’s either left on a mission or has chosen to disappear.

Q calls MI6 to check 007’s status and learns that he left for Chechnya twenty-four hours earlier, but hasn’t yet been in contact.

Grozny. One of the most dangerous cities in the world.

“Activate his subdermal tracking device. I’m coming in.”


	3. Bond

If Q is bad, Bond is worse. He tackles his next mission with a recklessness far beyond his usual. (“Do you have a death wish, 007?” his handler—Li, not Q—asks rhetorically.) He can’t sleep, so he numbs himself with alcohol and Oxy and gratefully passes out. He writes—but never sends—rambling text messages quoting Keats. (“I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.”) The mission is a total cock up and he couldn’t care less.

 

***

 

He likes to be out of the country in late December, preferably somewhere warm and Islamic. But this year he’s too apathetic to escape from London’s postcard-perfect holiday scenes. Evergreens and gingerbread! Fairy lights and nutcrackers! Bond closes the drapes against the shiny, happy world and orders Chinese. He eats it from the box, alone, illuminated only by the flickering twilight of his television.

 

***

 

What to do on New Year’s Eve? Maybe...Eve. He gives her a call, tries to reactivate that part of his hindbrain that prefers hot women who shoot him over the toppy boffin who provides the guns.

Moneypenny is having none of his crap. She tells him she has plans (possible), that it would be disloyal to Q (true), that she would regret it in the morning (possible), that _he_ would regret it in the morning (definitely true). “Will you eat if I come?” she finally asks with a sigh.

He’s unable to make the effort to be lewd. “No promises.”

She brings groceries to make a simple meal of pasta and salad. He notes, somewhat absently, that she really had been on her way to a party. She’s wearing comfortable clothes, but her eyes are made up and her fingernails are painted with iridescent glitter that sparkles like rainbows when they catch the light.

“Christ, James.” He smells like booze and cigarettes. His eyes are bloodshot, making their blue all the more intense. He hasn’t shaved for a week, his beard showing grey against his florid face. “I’d turn around and leave if this was a date. Good thing I’m here only as your friend.”

“You sometimes sleep with your friends.”

She does not deny it. “And look at this place…”

Bond swings his head around like he’s the bull to her toreador. His enemy, his salvation. He takes in the pile of dirty laundry on the floor of the hall, the empty takeaway boxes perched precariously on the bin, the pills scattered across the kitchen counter where his shaking hands had spilled them.

“Shower while I cook,” she orders. And since he hasn’t any thoughts of his own, he does.

After they eat, she directs some tidying up. (“At least move your laundry off the floor.”) She rolls her eyes when he relocates the pile of clothes to a chair in his bedroom. He takes the trash out. She washes dishes and wipes down the counters.

“Now put all this stuff out of sight.” She indicates Q’s tea infusers and four varieties of loose leaf. “And his toothbrush and razor, and anything else he’s left behind. You don’t have to bin it yet. He’s stubborn, but I’m not convinced it’s over.”

Then Moneypenny pulls two clean glasses from the cupboard and pours them both some scotch.

“I already have one.” He indicates the tumbler in his hand, sticky and smudged. It probably hasn’t been left empty in days. She takes it from him, replaces it with the fresh one.

“New year, new glass.”

She settles him on the sofa and gently runs her fingers through his freshly washed hair. “Talk to me.”

His voice is flat, emotionless, and he can see that worries her as much as anything. “I don’t understand what happened. Did he tell you? Because he hasn’t said a fucking word to me in over a month.”

“He only said that you were not the man he wanted, but the man he had expected.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Fuck if I know.”

At the stroke of midnight, she kisses him on his scratchy cheek and together they kill the bottle. Soon after she gets a blanket from the guest room to tuck around him as he nods off. “Try to look after yourself, James. Try to stay safe,” she says before calling for a cab.

“No promises.”

 

***

 

He leaves the next morning, head till muzzy, but a bit better rested, and drives to Scotland, stopping only for petrol. He stands in the sleet, staring at the wreckage of Skyfall. It’s been more than two years since the night M—his M—died in his arms. He hadn’t expected to ever see it again, but…feelings change. Evolution. Once, not long ago, he had entertained the idea of buying it back, rebuilding and retiring here; once he had imagined installing state-of-the-art high-speed satellite internet, fast enough to appease a certain technophile. Now he doesn’t plan to retire.

 

***

 

Grozny is exactly the hellhole he thought it would be. Exactly the hellhole he wants. Negative 9 degrees and unseasonably dry. He feels as if the air is sucking all the moisture from his eyeballs, his nostrils, his lips. He is a husk.

He swings himself onto the back of a truck headed across town and conceals himself under the tarp covering some tattered cardboard boxes. The streets are crawling with Kadyrovtsy, outfitted entirely in black and carrying AK-105 assault rifles. Bond is dressed to match. He doesn’t need to infiltrate the paramilitary organization that holds the city hostage, he just needs to be able to move inconspicuously amongst them.

His mission is the extraction—by force if necessary— of Cyrus Abbott, a human rights activist who just happens to be the brother of a high-ranking British bureaucrat. Abbott has flatly refused to leave Grozny without his Chechen wife and their baby, even while the resistance is being murdered in droves. The woman and child are not part of Bond’s mission.

Twenty-six hours after leaving London, he checks in with MI6 headquarters. Nothing much to report. It’s 5 a.m. his time and he hunkers down to wait the few hours until sunrise.

 

In contrast to the rubble and smoke of urban Grozny, the Abbotts’ tiny house in the suburbs looks unmolested. There are curtains in the windows and the front door is painted a cheerful blue. The only signs of ruin are the skeletons of geraniums, left to die in the frost.

The back of the house is a different story. The wooden door hangs crookedly from its frame, splintered into angry, jagged pieces. Inside, a body is sprawled on the kitchen tile. Abbott. In the only bedroom, two more. The child is wearing pink pajamas. The woman isn’t yet dressed for bed.

“Asset eliminated by opposition approximately twelve hours ago,” Bond says tonelessly into his mic.

“Understood, 007,” Li says. “Make your way to the extraction site as planned. And thank you for your efforts.”

Bond just grunts.

 

***

 

Bond waits until nightfall and then unmoors the boat he used to get to the city from his drop point. It’s time to go back; this mission was useless. A waste of national resources, sure, but for Bond also a waste of opportunity. Where is his risk, his danger? But even that wouldn’t make him feel alive, not without…but he can’t bear to think about Q.

He follows the serpentine waters of the Sunzha River out of Grozny and motors upstream toward the Caucasus Mountains. He tries not to lose himself in black thoughts. But in the bitter cold, the moonless dark, it’s a battle. Unlike the last time—Vesper—there’s nowhere to direct his rage and confusion, no one to kill.

He’s not expecting the grenade. And he should have been. It misses the motorboat, detonates in the river.

The boat rears like a startled horse and crashes back to the water, spilling Bond into the murk. The icy water steals his breath and it’s a struggle to reach the shore. Made more difficult by bullets seeking his head.

The bank of the Sunzha is sludge. It sucks at his boots and mires him to the ankle. When he finally makes it to the treeline, the mud on his boots makes his feet twice as heavy. He’s now on high alert, but there is no more gunfire. He wasn’t targeted for being MI6; it was just Grozny’s militia on patrol.

“..oh sev…plea…report,” Li’s voice in his ear is broken by static.

“Alive,” he grumbles. “Took a bath.”

“…ry…come again?”

“Lost the boat, on foot, wet.”

“…not getting clear audio. Please use the handheld.”

“Lost the boat,” he says again, getting frustrated. “Lost the fucking transmitter. All my gear…”

“No, we’re getting nothing but white noise,” he hears Li say, but the sound is oblique, like the handler has turned to update someone in the room. He can hear them intelligibly now, but they can’t hear him. Fucking fantastic.

Bond trudges away from the river, only to find himself on the bank, staring at the black water, once again. Hairpin bend. The Sunzha is full of them. He has no visual clues to tell him which direction to turn. He needs to get away from the river, not get trapped where it turns back on itself.

He uses his best judgement and starts moving again, keeping the river to his left. He’s soaked to the skin, shivering, and suddenly so weary. He just needs a moment to regroup, make a plan.

Bond tries to squat at the base of a pine, but stumbles and sits down hard on his arse. Clumsy. And his wet clothes are sapping his body heat.

“Gotta get my clothes off,” he mumbles as he wrestles with his shoulder holster.

“Normally I could get behind that proposal, James,” says a new voice. “But in this case you need to find shelter first.”

Q! Thank god.

 

Bond’s mic is unreliable. Sometimes the staff in Q Branch can pick him up, sometimes not. But it doesn’t matter. He can hear Q’s voice, polished and efficient, as he tries his best to follow directions.

But there is no shelter, just scrubby pines and freezing cold.

Finally what he’s been hoping to hear: “007, I think it’s best for you to stop and conserve your energy. I’m sending in the medevac.”

“You have eyes on me?” Bond asks, surprised. He’s not thinking clearly.

“No, your tracker…”

He reaches up and feels the small bump at the hairline on the back of his neck. His electronic tether to his Quartermaster.

“Can’t do that.” It’s Mallory from farther away. “We can’t evacuate him from there. Kadyrov will retaliate. No British citizen in Chechnya will survive.”

“He can’t get out by himself!” Q argues and Bond imagines him as an angry owl, ruffled feathers and piercing eyes.

“We’re not even supposed to be there,” M says. “An evacuation that close to the city will be political suicide.”

Now voices pitched high with emotion. An argument he can’t follow. He closes his eyes to better concentrate on the sound.

“We have to get him out!” Q’s shout rouses him. “ _I_ have to get him out. I can’t leave him.”

“Sir, the truth is, if we lose Bond, we’ll lose Q as well,” he hears Moneypenny—was she there all along?—say to M. She sounds cool-headed, but completely certain. “And believe me, you do not want him to go rogue.”

Then Q: “Silva is your paragon of a cyberterrorist, is he? His revenge was motivated by hate. He was fucking insane with it. You can’t even _conceive_ of the havoc I can rain on you, this organization, this country. Because I’m a bloody genius and my vengeance would be motivated by love.”

There is nothing but silence after this proclamation and Bond wonders if he’s lost the feed completely. Or maybe he dreamed it all. He’s having a hard time staying awake. But at least he’s nearly stopped shivering. That has to be good, doesn’t it?

Q comes back on the line, his voice rough and pleading. “If you can hear me, James, know that help is on the way. Please hang on. Please come home.”

 

***

 

Bond was expecting to be evacuated to Moscow, but wakes up in London. It has to be London—Q is standing at the window, backlit by thin sunshine.

“Hello.” Q sounds tentative, unsure of his reception.

Bond can’t get a word past the sudden closure of his throat. Seven weeks exactly. He’s been keeping track.

A medic beside the bed interrupts his thoughts. “You were severely hypothermic, Mr. Bond. We had to warm your blood outside your body and then do a transfusion. But you are expected to recover without further problems.”

“ _Spasiba_ ,” Bond says in conditioned response and realizes then that the medic was speaking Russian.

He turns again to Q. “We’re still in Moscow? How long have I been out? How long did it take for you to get here?”

Q approaches the bed, hesitates, then puts his warm hand over Bond’s. “It’s only a four hour flight. You were evac'd last night; it’s about lunch time now.”

“You took a plane.” He must not be thinking clearly yet. Q doesn’t fly.

“I told you for the right occasion or the right company…”

“I’m sorr…” Bond starts, but Q cuts him off.

“No, _I’m_ sorry. This was all me—my issues with trust.”

“You’re going to give me the old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line? That’s not very original.”

Q finally smiles. “Okay, it was partially you.”

“I accept that. And once I know what I did, I’ll make it up to you.”

 

Bond spends four days in the medical ward, going stir crazy before finally being cleared to go home. The flight to Heathrow is rough, but manageable thanks to Xanax (for Q) and scotch (for Bond). They deplane as the sun sets and London’s lights start to blink on. After Chechnya, the weather—just the usual winter drizzle—seems balmy. Pleasant.

“Can I interest you in dinner?” Bond gives Q an exaggerated wink.

“If you mean a square meal served in the evening, then yes. If you mean sex at yours, then doubly so.”

***

Q pulls Bond’s wool jumper over his head and helps him out of his shirt. He slides his hands up Bond’s naked chest and then dances his fingertips along the jagged knife scar on Bond’s shoulder. (“This should have been stitched. I told you it would scar.”) Then he pushes him to sit on the edge of the bed and finishes stripping him bare.

“I’ve missed you.”

“That’s your own fault. We could have done this in Moscow.”

“I am not going to fuck you in a medical ward, James!”

Bond just shrugs. And then, as Q kneels in front of him, sighs with pleasure.

Soon there is the sweet breech, the push and drag. Q taking exactly what he wants and Bond (mostly) following his directions. It works in the field, it works for them here as well.

Bond wonders how that wisp of an ex-wife could have run roughshod over a man this confident, this naturally dominant. But curiosity about these things nearly proved his undoing. Better not to go there.

 

***

 

Breakfast their first morning back in London is uncomplicated. Toast with strawberry jam, plenty of tea for Q, plenty of coffee for Bond. “I’ve had this for a while,” Bond says, sliding the little gift across the table to Q. It is wrapped in matte silver paper with a shiny silver ribbon. He knows Q will remember it from the night everything went pear-shaped.

Bond wonders if these last two months might have been different if he’d given Q the gift before they left the flat, instead of thinking it should wait until they returned. But maybe nothing could have changed their trajectory, certainly not a frivolous gift, or even the message it was meant to convey. Honesty and direct communication. Those need to be the foundation of a healthy relationship. Obvious, perhaps—but not always to men who’ve never done it before.

Q, with his morning bed-head and a smear of jam at the corner of his mouth, looks like a curious child as he unwraps the present. Inside the box is a stainless tea infuser shaped like a locket, two halves of a heart hinged together, but with a long handle for stirring.

“As I said, it’s nothing. The customization cost three times what the spoon-thing did.”

Bond watches as Q reads the engraving on the front of the handle:

_Love, love me do, You know I love you_

“Turn it over.”

He does:

_I'll always be true, So please, love me do_

Adrian closes his eyes a moment, long lashes dark against his pale cheeks. When he looks across the table at James, his eyes are bright—the green of a forest canopy, mottled with gold. Beautiful.

“Who are you? What have you done with the real James Bond? …Because this is ridiculous. It’s beyond mawkish,” he says, pretending scorn. But then he smiles, sunshine in January, and his nose wrinkles. _There it is._

“So, you like it?”

“I do.”


	4. Tea Strainers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the novelty tea strainers Bond collects really exist.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/22155866@N00/22824029302/in/datetaken/)

**Author's Note:**

> If it were possible to wear out a digital file, I would have done so listening to Arctic Monkey's "Do You Wanna Know?" which was the original inspiration for this fic. In fact, its first title was "Constantly on the Cusp." I didn't listen to The Beatles at all.


End file.
